Sweet Hearts
by GodzillaGuy92
Summary: It's Valentine's Day, and you know what that means. Will Oliver finally be able to tell Miley his true feelings? And if he does, will he be able to stand it if she rejects him? Moliver. This is my first Hannah Montana story, so please read and review!
1. Hopelessly In Love

Well, this is how I got the idea for this story. With it being Valentine's Day and everything, I naturally found much of my thoughts absorbed with Miley Cyrus (yes, I'm a guy). Also, my Language Arts teacher gave us each a few of those Sweet Heart candies. You know, the kind that people only have around Valentine's Day and have little love messages on them? Well, after reading a couple of them, with said crush on Miley Cyrus, the two thoughts just kind of combined and the idea for this story popped into my head. Don't ask about what will happen later in the story, because I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Read and review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: If I owned Hannah Montana, then you would be watching this on Disney Channel instead of reading it, wouldn't you?

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**Sweet Hearts**

By GodzillaGuy

**Chapter 1**

**Hopelessly In Love**

What is the one creature man has never been able to tame, contain, or otherwise restrict? Give up? I thought so. Well, unfortunately, I know the answer all too well.

Women.

It was Valentine's Day, and you all know what that means. Love was in the air. Cheesy, but true, it was there, not to mention greatly assisted by the glittering red paper hearts suspended from the ceiling. Probably about five times as many couples were had been making out in the hallway as usual. There were extra teachers patrolling halls with the specific intent of breaking the displays up, but there were just too many to keep under control.

I sat at my desk, thoughts swimming through my head like a school of tuna. Why couldn't that be me, kissing someone out in the halls like there was no tomorrow? I definitely wouldn't mind a lecture from Ms. Sullivan about how wrong public displays of affection are if I could just have one kiss from-

_Her._

She walked into the classroom, and I felt a sensation unlike any other. _Fulfillment_. Well, partial fulfillment. No, until we could be something more than just _friends_, I would never feel complete fulfillment. Nevertheless, when she was around me, I felt the gaping hollowness that normally filled my chest when she came to my mind - which was a lot, believe me - partially subside.

She possessed a grace when she walked that not even she knew she had. Oh, but _I_ knew. It was like watching a bird in flight. That didn't keep my eyes away from her face and, er... _chest_ when she was walking towards me and her... ahem, _rear_ when she walked away, but still. It just made those things all the more beautiful.

Speaking of which, I could not begin to describe to you her face. Truly and honestly, I think she might just be an angel. She certainly _looked_ the part, her facial features that I am positive God himself put a great amount of effort into shaping accentuated by the rim of soft, brown hair that framed it. And her eyes were just the right shade of blue. I loved those eyes. It was like looking into two deep pools. And like two deep pools, it was incredibly easy to lose myself in their depths, to dive in and never want to surface again... except that I had to.

"Hey, Oliver," said Miley Stewart, sitting down.

And that voice... her voice is comparable to both an angel _and_ a bird. It's definitely no mistake that she was a singer with a voice like that. Almost nobody knew it, but still, she was. Whenever I heard her talk, a strange mixture of joy, relief, and fear penetrated me.

"Hey, Miley," I replied.

What an irony. She possessed a secret so delicate, so _sacred_ that if anybody besides those she knew she could trust _ever_ found out, the entire country (and a few other countries as well) would be shocked stupid. Nobody would talk about anything else for weeks. Maybe months. Even still, there were those who knew. For example, me.

But what absolutely _nobody_ - except Lilly Truscott, curse her - knew my own secret.

I was hopelessly in love with my best friend.


	2. I Could Never Tell

**Chapter 2**

**I Could Never Tell**

To be honest, I don't even know how I did it.

I think you have a pretty good idea by now of how deep my love for Miley ran. She was funny, smart, and mindblowingly beautiful. You know how I thought of her. You know how much I loved her.

But I never once let it show.

I have no idea how I kept my voice from cracking with every word I spoke to her, or how I never let myself stutter or trip over my own words. I have no clue how I even managed to have any sort of normal conversation with her at all, I was so captivated by her.

But, somehow or another, I did.

I guess I was just a good actor. I frequently imagined myself being in some kind of Disney Channel sitcom, with the canned "live studio audience" laughter issuing every time I said something even slightly funny.

Back to the point, however, I had not given her reason to think that_ I_ might feel something other than _friendly_ feelings towards her. In fact, the feelings I had towards her were _very_ friendly, but you get the point. I had cast myself a part in this play called life and played it well.

I was a coward.

Suppose I broke character and told her how I really felt? I knew exactly what would happen. She would be stunned, maybe even, in an absolute best-case scenario, to some small degree, flattered, but she would not return my love. Then, gradually, our friendship would start to wane. No more friend-to-friend talks. No more hanging out. When I saw her, the first thing that would come to my mind is when I told her that I loved her, and the same incident would come to hers whenever she saw me. Can you spell "awkward?" No, there could be no turning back after that. Not only would I never have a chance with her, we wouldn't even be friends at all anymore, and with that terrible empty feeling that would build up in my heart, I wouldn't be able to live on.

Miley had definitely made it clear that she didn't feel anything towards me. After I found out she was Hannah Montana, she revealed to me that the reason that she hadn't told me was because if I knew, I would be in love with her, too. What she hadn't counted on, of course, was that I liked her already. What she hadn't counted on was that the only reason I liked Hannah Montana was because she had subconsciously reminded me of Miley. She didn't _want_ me to like her. The thought grossed her out. So I lied. I said that I didn't love Hannah Montana and I didn't love her. I still remember when we hugged.

"Anything?" she had asked.

There _had_ been something, of course. Wherever she touched my body in that hug was tingling like crazy by the time she had asked that, to say nothing about the space between my legs. That was it. My last chance. If I lied to her then, I could never tell her that I loved her more than ever.

"Nope. In fact, it's a little awkward."

How those two sentences would haunt me in my dreams.

Then came Becca Weller. For some reason that eludes me to this day, she had liked me. It had been Miley herself that had informed me, since Becca had emailed Hannah Montana for advice. Irony much? So, my brain, rather than my heart, decided to take a crack at my love life. I knew Miley didn't like me, even more reinforced now by the fact that she was trying to hook me up with another girl. Maybe it was time to let go, to find someone who _did_ like me. So I had tried to like Becca. I really did. I even fooled myself into thinking that I was heartbroken when Miley told me Becca just wanted to be friends with me. I followed her advice, and I had been about to break up with Becca before she broke up with me when Miley had run up in a chicken suit to warn me not to do it. Miley had slipped up, saying that she had stolen Becca's PDA out of her locker to see what she had been writing to Hannah Montana. I knew that Becca wasn't dumb enough to accept the simple excuse of, "'Cause I'm a baaaaaaaaad chicken.," so I pulled a fantasy of mine from the past; that Miley was deeply in love with me. She made it apparent to me, though not to Becca, that this definitely wasn't the case, and, surprisingly, I felt as if someone was piercing my heart with a rusty knife. It was the same feeling that I had gotten that day at the beach when I learned that she was Hannah Montana.

After all that, I still loved her.

Becca and I had continued to go out for awhile afterwards, but we broke up after not too long. We both simply decided that we would be better off as just friends. I didn't dump her, she didn't dump me. We just contently went our separate ways. I wish my life was always that simple.

I continued to crush on Miley until another bump in the road came along; Miley's cousin Luanne. It really was amazing how much they looked alike. Minus the glasses, braids, etc., they could have been twins. As you know, an admittedly significant part of why I loved Miley was because she was beautiful. Luanne was... a step backwards, true, but my brain was working against my heart again. With Becca Weller, I had tried to drop Miley all at once. But because Luanne looked like Miley, I could do it slowly, gradually.

Then came the night of that party. When I discovered Luanne had locked Miley, _my_ Miley, in her own closet and pretended to be her, I was outraged more than I knew I was capable of. I used my "acting skills" to force my rage down, but it was still there, all right. The only way I expressed this anger at all was when the lights went off. When I pulled Luanne off the stage, I had pulled as hard as I could to vent my anger towards her. Other than that, my feelings were suppressed.

And _then_ Luanne had tried her last trick, to confuse us into making Lilly and I believe she was actually Miley. They were perfectly identical now that Luanne was in disguise, but their personalities were anything but the same. So I came up with a truly inspired idea; I told both of them to kiss me. It would either find out the truth and solve the problem or be granted two kisses, one from a pretty girl and one from _the _pretty girl. One eagerly agreed, and, for just a fraction of a second, I hoped that one was Miley. Then reality kicked in, and despite all my wishes otherwise, I knew that Miley was the one who exclaimed,

"Ew!"

That word had driven the point home.

Miley didn't love me and she never would.


	3. A History of Valentine's Day

Wow, you guys are great! Thank you so much for all your reviews! I really appreciate them. Seriously, by the time I checked my email to see if anyone had responded to Chapter 2, I had already gotten four reviews.

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**Chapter 3**

**A History of Valentine's Day**

You know how when you're thinking about someone you have a crush on and your mind is wondering off when you hear that person ask why you're staring at them, and it's only then that you notice that you actually _have_ been staring at them for the whole time you've been thinking about them, which is who knows how long?

"Oliver, why are you staring at me?"

Yeah.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. "Sorry, Miles," I said simply.

She shrugged. "So, what are you doing for Valentine's Day?" she inquired.

"Well, first of all..."

I reached into my binder and pulled out pink slip of paper, a piece of candy taped to it. I handed it to her.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Miley."

I felt a thrill when she smiled down at it. "Aww. This is so sweet! Thank you! Your turn."

She opened her own binder and took out her own card, which she promptly gave me.

I read it and frowned.

"'To my number one soul sister?'"

"Oh sorry, that one's Lilly's."

I sighed with relief.

"_Here's_ yours," she said, giving me another Valentine. "Happy Valentine's Day, Oliver!"

"Thank you," I replied, reading it and eating the little chocolate heart taped to it.

"Anyways, what are you doing for today?" she inquired.

"I don't know." She started to open her mouth, but I continued, "I don't have a date, if that's what you mean." Her mouth abruptly closed.

"Oh. Well, do you want one?"

_You have no idea,_ I thought.

"No."

Miley looked puzzled. "But aren't you-" she licked her finger, stuck it to her hip, and made a _sss_ sound while thickening her Southern accent, "-Smokin' Oken? Aren't you the one cruising through the hallways with all your pick-up lines? Aren't you-"

"I get the point," I interrupted. "I don't know. I'm just not feeling it today. I dunno why."

That last part was completely untrue, of course, but you already knew that.

Still, she seemed concerned. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

_I can think of a couple things._

"No."

"...Well, I'm sorry."

"No really," I insisted, "it's okay."

_Liar._

However, neither of us got to say anything else before a blonde head suddenly jumped up from in between our desks and screamed,

"HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!"

The surprise caused me to involuntarily yelp as well, not to mention fall out of my seat with a painful _thud_. After a few seconds of lying there, I looked up with a scowl plastered on my face.

"Happy Valentine's Day to you too, Lilly," I said from behind gritted teeth. She grinned.

Miley was still hyperventilatating, though she hadn't fallen out of her seat. "Good Lord, Lilly, was that really necessary?"

"Uh huh!" came her answer. I rolled my eyes and scrambled back up to my seat. Wearily, I fished out my other valentine I had in my binder and handed it over. Miley did the same, though she still looked a little ticked.

"So, Lilly, what are you doing for today?" Miley asked.

Lilly smiled mischievously. "I think I'm going to play matchmaker this year."

_Matchmaker?_ That didn't sound very much like Lilly to me.

"Matchmaker?" Miley echoed my thoughts.

"Yep," chirped Lilly. "I don't really have anyone of my own in mind, so I figured I'm going to help other people get together. There's so many people afraid to tell others how they feel."

She gave me a knowing glance.

_She wouldn't._

Suddenly, this sounded _very_ much Lilly.

"That's really generous, Lilly," said Miley admiringly. " I don't have a date either. Maybe I should help you."

Lilly suddenly looked nervous. "Uh... I don't think so, Miley. I think that, uh, I should do this on my own for now. Yeah."

_She would._

Before Miley had time to argue, Mr. Picker walked into the classroom looking thoroughly exhausted despite the fact that this was our first period. Probably from trying to track down all the kissing young couples.

"Settle down, class," he said. The class fell silent. "In honor of Valentine's Day, we will be studying its history today."

Nobody said anything.

"I can see how excited you are," remarked the teacher.

He started his lecture. "The closest thing to an equivalent of Valentine's Day first appeared in ancient Greece. During the period between what is now mid-January and mid-February, the Greeks celebrated during their month of Gamelion, which was dedicated to the marriage Zeus and Hera."

Mr. Picker paused. "As you know, Rome adopted many customs of the Greeks when they took over. February 15 was the Roman holiday Lupercalia. It was in honor of the female wolf who raised Romulus and Remus. In fact, Lupercalia comes from the Roman word lupus, which means wolf. Lupercalia was a fertility festival."

_A_ fertility _festival? _I thought. Looking around the class, I could tell I was not the only one thinking those words.

Mr. Picker paid us no heed. "Priests called luperci would travel to the cave where the legendary wolf allegedly lived, the lupercal, and sacrifice two goats and a dog inside. then they would take the blood back to Rome and smear it across the street, providing fertility and keeping wolves away from their fields and animals."

_Wow, the Romans were weird._ Didn't they stop to think that smearing animal blood all over their streets would probably _attract_ wolves?

"To celebrate this," said Mr. Picker, "The noble youths and magistrates would run through the streets naked and slap people with their underwear for the sport of it."

While most of the class chuckled or exchanged odd glances, I busied myself trying to wrestle down a _very_ unwholesome mental picture involving Miley that that sentence had forced into my head.

It didn't work.

Stupid hormones.

Mr. Picker continued. "At some point around AD 300, a Genoan bishop named St. Valentine, according to the various legends about him, began to arrange marriages during a ban on them under Emperor Claudius II for Roman soldiers. However, in approximately 307, he was caught in the act. The day before he was executed not only for this, but for being a Christian, he supposedly wrote a note to his jailor's daughter that said, 'From your Valentine.'"

My imagination went into overdrive again. Suddenly, I found myself sitting in a dark, musty dungeon, wearing dirty rags as I awaited my fate. I clung to a grimy little slip of paper as if for dear life. Then the gloom was pierced by a ray of hope as Miley ran towards my jail cell. Smiling but saying nothing, I handed her the card. She took it and stared down at it for a few seconds, then suddenly reached her arms through the bars for one last, passionate kiss-

_Stop it,_ I told myself.

"Lupercalia was later abolished by Pope Gelasius, replacing it with a more general festival named Juno Februa, which was celebrated on February 13 and 14 sometime between 492 and 496 AD. He also ruled in 496 that the 14th would be the feast of St. Valentine's Day.

"St. Valentine's Day grew steadily more popular over the years. For example, a High Court of Love that dealt with love contracts, betrayals of these contracts, and how to punish those who broke them was established in Paris, France on Valentine's Day in 1400."

"Valentine's Day came to America when the first British colonists settled here. The first mass-produced valentines in the United States were made and sold by Esther Howland from Worcester, Massachusetts in 1848. In her honor, the Greeting Card Association started giving out an award in 2001 called the Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary."

All I could think was, _There's actually a Greeting Card Association?_

The rest of the class passed in a similar fashion. After Mr. Picker finished telling us about Valentine's Day, we watched a video about St. Valentine and did a worksheet.

Before the bell rang, though, Mr. Picker passed out those little Sweet Hearts candies. I didn't like them; they tasted like little anti-oxidants. Especially the white ones. Still, I read the message that was on it.

**No way**, it read.

As I pondered what that meant, my gaze fell on Miley, and my insides sank.

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Remember how I said back in Chapter 1 that I got the idea for this story from reading the messages on those Sweet Heart candies? The message from this chapter, along with the messages from future chapters (there will be more) are all real ones I received. So at least now you know why Sweet Hearts is the title of the story. Bye!


	4. Lilly's Mission

This is better than even I had ever hoped for! Sooner than I finally was able sign on to my email address at my dad's house than I saw that I had gotten _fifteen_ new emails! Granted, a few were reviews for some of my Godzilla stories, but they were mostly for this! With last chapter's reviews, I've already gotten four more reviews than for Godzilla vs. the Zillas, which is more than twelve thousand words now and has been on this site for over a month. Normally, I would list all the people who reviewed right about now, but there's so many I don't think I can! Not to worry, **Person who loves ur writing**, "bye" did not mean the story was over.

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**Chapter 4**

**Lilly's Mission**

After I walked out of Mr. Picker's class, I waited outside the door until Lilly walked out. Then I grabbed her shoulder and guided her away from the classroom without a word despite her protests. Finally, we had reached what I deemed a safe enough distance and let go.

"Gosh, Oliver, what was that for? I think I can actually feel the bruise forming where your fingertips were."

I ignored her. "I know what you're planning," I said. "You want to try to get Miley and I together by the end of the day."

"No I'm not."

I frowned in confusion. "You're not?" I asked.

"No," she replied. "I _will _get you and Miley together by the end of school."

I sighed. Lilly was the only person who, to my knowledge, knew that I loved Miley. And no, I had not told her. She had figured it out by herself. She said she could tell by "the way I looked at her." How can you possibly tell how someone feels by how they _look_ at people? I'm pretty sure that I didn't look at Miley any differently than anybody else. If you could do this, why hadn't Miley herself noticed it? Still, Lilly knew.

"How many times do I have to tell you," I said, "Miley-"

"Does not love you back, thinks of you only as a friend, brother, or pet fish, and is grossed out by the very thought of anything more? You can keep telling me forever, Oliver, but I know you're wrong."

_Yeah, right._

"It just won't work, Lilly," I attempted to explain.

Lilly wouldn't hear it. "Oliver, the only reason she says those things is that she thinks _you_ don't like _her_. Don't forget, you've made it sound like you're grossed out by anything that could possibly develop between you two just as many times as she has. It's an entire pointless circle!"

As much as my heart wanted to believe that, this world was run by reality, not love.

"And how exactly do you know this, Lilly?" I inquired.

"Well, it's the way-"

"-She looks at me?" I interrupted.

"Well, yeah," she answered simply.

"Oh, please," I said. "If she 'looked at me' in any sort of special way, I would know, considering how much I stare at her all the time-" I cut myself off before I could say anything more. Even to someone who already knew, that was pretty embarrassing.

Lilly smirked. "Oliver, you love Miley. She loves you. You both think that the other person who is in love with you doesn't love you back. To keep your friendship, which you both want to be more, even though you don't know that the other wants it to be more, you both pretend that you don't like each other, otherwise your friendship would be ruined. The only problem is that the more the more you try to convince yourselves that you two will never be together and the more you two try to accept that and move on, the more you both end up liking each other and the more pain you both feel. This needs to stop. I can't call myself your friend if I don't do at least this much for you."

I had been shaking my head the whole time. "Lilly, if Miley liked me, why would she continue to go out with other guys?"

"The same reasons that you do!" she practically screamed. "Don't you get it, Oliver?! She doesn't want to tell you that she likes you because she doesn't want your friendship to be all awkward, so she goes out with all those other guys to try to get over you! There's just one problem; you two are meant for each other! Haven't you ever noticed that her so-called 'relationships' never last?!"

She had a point with that last part, I had to admit. "But those were never her fault! Josh hated the Hannah Montana concert and left, and Jake flew off to Romania right after their first-" I paused a moment, "-kiss, which, by the way, left Miley back here in Malibu devastated. The list goes on and on."

"_Exactly._ Those other guys never worked out because there's something a whole lot bigger working here. _Destiny._"

_If there was such thing as destiny, it would have worked far before now_, I thought. I shook my head.

Lilly growled. "Well, I have a mission to accomplish and I'm not resting until it's done. Will you cooperate, or am I gonna have to bring you two horribly blind love birds together myself?"

"You're on your own with this one, Lilly," I said. "This isn't going to work."

"It _will_ work. You can't escape destiny. And I'm gonna give destiny a little push."

With that, she walked away, leaving me there alone in the hallway to ponder what depths Lilly Truscott would go to accomplish one of her fiendish little plots.


	5. Cosines and Confusion

**Chapter 5**

**Cosines and Confusion**

After my talk with Lilly, I somehow managed to get to Mr. Shipman's class a few seconds before the late bell rang.

"Copy your homework answers from the board and turn them in," was the closest thing he had for a greeting today. Heck, that's as close as he ever got to greeting us any day. Mr. Shipman was not exactly the most fun teacher around. Just as with any other holiday that we still had to go to school on, he ignored it and treated it like it was any other day, for the most part. After all, Geometry was hardly a fun subject.

I copied the selected answers from last night's homework and turned them in, then sat and waited for everyone else to finish. At least I wouldn't have to wait long; Mr. Shipman only gave us five minutes to copy them down, with all our work shown. My eyes then landed on Miley, and I suddenly didn't want our time to be short, so that I could just sit and stare at her angelic features all day...

Before I knew it, Mr. Shipman told us to put away our homework and take out our notes. Reluctantly, I tore my gaze from Miley and did so.

The class never seemed to end. Note after note after useless note about the freaking Law of Cosines and how to use it to solve all the missing angle measures and side lengths of non-right triangles. What was the point of it all, anyway? I was pretty confident that _a_ times _a_ equals _b_ times _b_ plus _c_ plus _c_ minus two times _b_ times _c_ times the cosine of angle _A_ wouldn't help me in real life. I hated Geometry. Deeply.

At last, after forty-five minutes, we finished the lesson, and my hand felt like it was about to fall off, crawl to the beach, and rest all day while working on its tan.

Mr. Shipman, however, wasn't quite done. "For the remainder of the period," he said, ignoring the groans that were already spreading across the classroom like a wildfire, "you are to work with a partner on this worksheet. It will be due by the end of the period." He passed out the sheets of paper to the class, which then got out of their seats to find their partners. Wearily, I stood up. Miley would be working with Lilly, as usual, so I had to find somebody else. Imagine my surprise when Miley walked up to me to ask if she could be my partner.

"Why don't you work with Lilly, like you always do?" I asked.

"Well," explained Miley, "Lilly said that she thought she saw me partner up with somebody else, so she went ahead and found another partner. By the time I could ask, it was too late."

Lilly had obviously been lying. She was just trying to get Miley and I to work together in a futile attempt to get us together. I peered over Miley's shoulder. Sure enough, there was Lilly sitting with... was that _Dandruff Danny?_

Whoa. She was more dedicated to this mission than I had thought.

"Sure, Miles, I'll work with you." She smiled, and for a moment I thought she smiled a little too brightly to fit the situation, as if she really wanted to be my partner-

I pushed the thought aside. That was just my imagination, trying to cook up hopeful ideas.

Miley and I sat down, and I examined the worksheet. It was one of those activities where you solve a math problem and find the answer, then find the same answer down on the bottom of the sheet, which matches up with a letter. Then you write down the letter, and when you solve all the problems and write down all the letters, you find that you've spelled out some kind of sentence. There were three groups of spaces, the first with five letters, the second with ten (the last one was separated from the rest by a comma), and the last had three. The sentence ended with an exclamation mark.

Oh, _that _was challenging. I could have figured out that one even without the little animated hearts with smiley faces decorating the paper.

Miley, evidently, was thinking similar thoughts. "Is this really the best they could do?" she asked incredulously.

"I guess so," I answered.

She looked at me. "That was a rhetorical question, you donut."

Donut. She had no idea how much I hated that title. By calling me a donut, she was saying that I was just her goofy friend, who, at the moment she said that word, was annoying her. She was saying that I could not be taken seriously, and that any sort of relationship was impossible.

But because I was Oliver Oken, I let none of these thoughts show on my face, just a shrug.

We both wrote down "**Happy Valentine's Day**" on our papers, turned them in to an astonished Mr. Shipman (who, apparently, hadn't expected any of his students to just figure it out), and sat back down.

"So, Miley," I began, "it looks like we've got ten minutes of free time on our hands."

"Guess so," said Miley. "Whattaya want to talk about?"

I shrugged before thinking of something. "How come you don't have a date for today?" I had been genuinely surprised when she mentioned offhandedly to Lilly that she wasn't going out with anyone. Of course, I had no problem with that, but it was odd that a girl as beautiful as her didn't have a date, today of all days.

This time, it was her turn to shrug. "I don't really know either. You'd think I would have someone, but I just... don't." She caught herself. "Y-you know, well, not to toot m-my own horn, or sound stuck up, or, er, anything l-like that. That's not w-what I was trying to say. It's j-just - like - well, y-you know what I mean, Oliver?"

"Yeah, I do," I said before I could stop myself.

Thankfully, Miley didn't seem to read much into my comment.

"Anyway, I'm not sure," she said. "Probably just the same reasons you don't."

_I wish._

Still, there was one thing I had to ask. "Is there someone you wish you could go out with today?"

Miley started to stutter again. "What? N-no. Why would y-you think that? I mean, you know, if th-there was a certain g-guy, I would've asked h-him out. Yeah."

I was too busy with my thoughts to notice that throughout that entire sentence she hadn't looked me in the eye.

"Well, say there was someone," I pressed on, in spite of myself, "Then would you do it?"

Miley seemed extremely fascinated by a lock of her hair. "Well, sure I would. I mean, why wouldn't I?"

I knew one possible answer to that question. My mind toyed with it.

Did Miley like me? It would explain why she started to trip over her words on subjects involving her finding somebody to go out with. And the fact that she wouldn't look at me directly whenever she talked about it.

Oh, what was I thinking? She didn't like me, otherwise she wouldn't have hooked me up with Becca Weller or gone on all those Jake Ryan Quests.

Unless...

Unless, like Lilly said, she had done those things for the same reasons I did...

Why did I have to think so much?

No. She didn't love me. I grossed her out, my mind was just playing hopeful tricks on me, I needed to stop thinking like that because it would only end in pain, and that was all there was to it.

Right?

"Okay, class," Mr. Shipman's voice interrupted my thoughts. "You're just about to leave, so here's a Valentine's gift to you."

He passed out those little Sweet Hearts to everyone in the class. With a miniature groan, I accepted mine. Surprisingly, I felt a small amount of anticipation, nervousness, and excitement as I turned it over to read the message.

**Hey, you**, it said.

'Hey you?' What was that supposed to mean?

_Well, that was kind of a disappointment_, I thought, then stopped. Why did I feel disappointed? It was just some random message written on a badly made piece of candy. It didn't mean anything. It couldn't.

At that moment my eyes met Miley's, and a warm shiver rippled through my insides when she smiled. She waved at me for a second, then turned away. I looked back down at the Sweet Heart.

Suddenly, **Hey, you** made much more sense.

I mentally slapped myself, threw away the candy, collected my books, walked outside when the bell rang, and made sure that I didn't make eye contact with Lilly throughout any of it so that I didn't have to see that triumphant grin I knew she would be wearing.


	6. Some Very Physical Education

**Chapter 6**

**Some Very Physical Education**

I made it to my favorite class with a few minutes to spare. I set my books on the bleachers and made my way to the locker room to change. I opened my locker, took out my grey athletic shirt, and slipped it on. Without my own permission, I wondered what this scene looked like with Miley in the girls' locker room.

From this one thought, of course, I received another mental picture. I actually had to bang my head against my locker fairly hardly before the image departed, causing many of the other guys to look at me strangely. I pretended not to notice.

Stupid hormones.

I put on my athletic shorts and exited the locker room, ready for class before the tardy bell even rang. This was much better than Geometry.

I sat down on my spot on the gym floor and patiently waited for the rest of the class to "dress out," as the coaches called it. After a few minutes, I looked to see how much of the class was ready. My eyes hit Miley like a magnet; in her sports attire, it was even harder to take my eyes off her than normal. Those athletic shorts were so small...

I bit my tongue with almost enough force to draw blood to distract myself enough to stop looking. After the pain faded, I kept a constant alert on my rebellious eyeballs to make sure they didn't stray upwards.

Stupid hormones... again.

Other than this, I was alone with my thoughts for some time.

After ten minutes, Coach Breece blew his whistle to get our attention and signaled us over to the corner of the gym where he and Ms. Mac sat. Coach Breece was only slightly taller than me but with much more pronounced muscles, somewhat red faced and with short, black hair. Ms. Mac, in comparison, was about a full head taller than Coach Breece, also muscular but at the same time heavyset, and had brown hair about the same color as Miley's that ran to her shoulders. Somehow, whether it was due to her height or otherwise, she seemed more intimidating than Coach Breece. Her real last name was McAllister, but Mac was just easier to say. I had also heard disgruntled students who had recently been punished by her for whatever reasons refer to her as "Big Mac" on more than one occasion.

I sat next to Miley, ignoring the fact that our bare knees were almost touching, and eagerly waited for the rest of the class to stop talking so that the coaches could reveal what game we would play.

While sitting, I overheard some of the conversations, and the largest by far interested me quite a lot:

"You actually knocked him out, Chance?"

At this, I turned around. Chance was surrounded by about a dozen guys, wearing an expression that said quite clearly that he didn't want to be having this conversation. Naturally, the small throng his story had attracted didn't care whether he wanted to talk about it or not. Knocking someone out was some juicy news.

"Yes," said Chance as if he had been asked that same question thirty times (which, I reflected, he probably had).

The guys, me included, looked at him with a mixture of fear, awe, and admiration.

"Why'd you hit him so hard?" asked somebody else.

"I didn't, or if I did, I didn't mean to," answered Chance.

"Well, why did you hit him?" the same person pressed on.

"We were just messing around," said Chance. "I hit him on the head, _not_ hard, and his eyes just rolled into his head and he fell out of his chair."

"Who was it?" This one came from me. Hey, I couldn't help myself. I just happened to be intensely curious. As I already said, it wasn't every day that somebody passed out in school, especially if he actually got knocked out.

"Dalton," said Chance simply. I nodded as if I knew exactly who he was talking about. I wanted very much to ask which Dalton he was talking about, but between inner guilt and everybody pestering him about it, I figured Chance had enough problems. I spared him the ordeal.

The discussion went on long enough for me to learn that it had happened last period, while Chance was in Mr. Corelli's class, and that Dalton had hit his head on the corner of one of the desks when he fell, making a large cut over his eye.

It took about another minute for the rest of the class to quiet down. Ms. Mac scanned the forty or so students to make sure that no conversations were still underway, then spoke.

"Okay, class," she projected, "today we're going to play War."

"Yes," I and several other guys whispered.

"No," groaned just about all of the girls in the class, Miley and Lilly included.

War was, in a way, fitting one of Miley's most popular songs, _The Best of Both Worlds_. It was the least favorite game of all the girls and the most favorite of all the guys. The whole class was actually made up of Coach Breece's and Ms. Mac's classes. The two individual classes would form the two teams. Everyone would get a belt with two flags attached to it via velcro; one team would wear red flags, the other blue. Then the two teams would stand against the wall on opposite sides of the gym. When the coaches blew their whistles, both teams would charge straight at each other. The aim was to grab the flags off of people from the opposite team. If someone had both of their flags pulled, they had to sit down. You could still grab peoples' flags if you were sitting, but you couldn't run after them. Some additional rules were that if you stepped out of bounds, you lost one flag, and it was illegal to pick flags up off the ground and put them back on your belt, hold your flags so that people couldn't take them, or tie your flags to your belt. Tons of people broke these rules each game, but, strangely, the coaches never made them stop or pull them out of the game. Whichever team was the last standing won.

Despite much protest from the feminine half of the class, we strapped on our belts and marched over to our respective sides. Once more, I sat down to wait, two blue flags resting at my sides. War could be a pretty exhausting game, and sometimes the coaches waited five minutes after we were ready to start the game, so I tried to waste as little energy as possible.

Luckily, only two minutes later Coach Breece brought his whistle to his mouth. I stood up, muscles tensed, and waited for him to blow it.

He did.

In War, there are three types of players. The first are the Suicidals. These players, all of which are guys, charge directly at the other team as fast as they possibly can as soon as they hear the are either gotten out almost immediately or are the ones who cheat by tying their flags to their belt so they can't get out anyway. The second type is the Uselesses. The Uselesses are made up entirely of girls. Not all girls are Uselesses, but all Uselesses are girls. They simply walk across the gym whenever the whistle is blown, talking amongst themselves as if there wasn't any game going on at all. The only exception is if someone tries to pull a Useless's flag, in which case they back away and scream. Other than that, they do nothing to contribute to War. Finally, there are the Neutrals. Neutrals, like me, don't recklessly charge forward, but they actually play the game, unlike Uselesses. They stay in the center, pulling flags off of other people when the chance presents itself, but defending themselves accordingly when the same thing happens to them. Neutrals are the only class made up of both boys and girls, allowing for a kind of diversity.

Suicidals practically crashed into each other, Uselesses stayed clear of anything involving any sort of physical activity, and Neutrals quickly and efficiently pulled each others' flags. I managed to pull the flag off of somebody as I passed by them, then sprint to the other side so he could not retaliate. I looked at the gym floor. There were three red and two blue flags lying near the center.

Coach Breece blew the whistle again. I stayed near the middle of the gym, away from the bleachers, where I could easily get cornered at this point, or the front lines, where I would be mercilessly stripped of my two precious flags. As the two masses of Neutrals began to disperse, I tried to pinpoint a target. Lilly seemed to be in a good position.

I ran at her, eyes on her red flags. Lilly noticed me coming and prepared. When I was about two feet away, I stopped and grabbed for her flags. She evaded me by jumping backwards, then tried to counterattack. Luckily, I had judged right; I had stopped just out of her range. I weaved my way around her and proceeded toward my own side before she could pull one of my my momentarily exposed flags. She apparently decided that I would leave our confrontation at that, and turned her back on me.

Big mistake. She had forgotten about my favorite trick.

I turned from my side of the gym and crept up behind her, quietly so that she wouldn't notice me there. I took my time, making sure that I had proper space, before my arm snapped forward and yanked off her flag with surgical precision. Without hesitation, I spun around again and ran as fast as I could toward my team, most of whom were already against the wall. Many cheered at this demonstration of my trademark move. The other team, I noticed with pleasure, were displaying completely opposite emotions, and several were whispering to each other and pointing at me.

_Hmm. Looks like I've made myself a target_, I thought smugly.

I heard the whistle one more. As the teams ran forward, I saw about three Suicidals head towards me like starved men running to a buffet. I didn't slow or speed up until they were only a few feet away from me.

Two grabbed at me, and I jumped backwards expertly. The third circled around and attacked my side. I swatted his hand away. I tried to go around the group, but the one at the right, only one flag remaining on his belt, cut me off. As I danced left and right from his groping fingers, I shot my arm forward. There was a rip of velcro as his flag came free. Defeated, he sank down to the floor. The other two looked like they thirsted for blood, but they soon found themselves occupied by the two people from my team who came to my aid. I wore a smile when I made my way back to my side. In this game, at least, I was valued.

Coach Breece blew the whistle. Staying in the very center after that last effort, I managed to not get involved in any more skirmishes. I looked back when I reached the other side. Including my little accomplishment, there were now six people sitting down.

The whistle blew, and I ran forward. Two other guys flanked my sides, forming a triangle shape. We attacked in the same manner as Suicidals, and aimed our living arrow towards a real, lone Suicidal. We came closer and closer, until-

Our arrow suddenly split apart. The Suicidal, obviously not expecting this tactic, hesitated. We rewarded him by yanking off both of his flags, leaving him sitting on the ground to sulk.

By now, my heart was pumping pretty hard. There were twelve people out now, eight of which, thankfully, were from the other team. I took deep breaths to steady myself. If I did this much work every round, I would become over exhausted pretty easily before long if I did nothing to rest.

Coach Breece blew on the whistle. I went forward neither fast nor slow. With the increasing number of people on the ground, I now had to be extra careful of the path I chose. One step in the wrong direction could cost you a flag. I ran in between the sitting people like they were traffic cones on a driving test. An enemy Neutral ran up to me and grabbed at my flag as he moved past. I did the same thing.

Two rips pierced the air. A red flag and a blue flag fell to the ground beside each other.

Cursing myself inwardly for the loss of my flag when I reached the opposite wall, I regained some of my bravado when I saw that it had been his last flag that I had pulled. I looked at the other team. They had lost more people than us, and it was beginning to show. I noticed that Lilly was still in. So was Miley, who I forced myself to glance at for only a fraction of a second, knowing fully well that if I looked at her for any amount of time longer than that, it would very hard to stop.

The whistle sounded, and I charged forward not entirely unlike a Suicidal. Someone on the ground grabbed at my waist; I jumped backwards and avoided it. I only looked back up just in time to see a real Suicidal coming at me at full speed only a foot away. I spun and reached out at the same time. I felt a satisfying _rip_ as I completed the spin. I swelled with pride. I had just jumped in a full circle and grabbed the flag of the enemy I was dodging at the same time as if on instinct. There were several cheers awaiting me at the other side.

I heard the Coach blow. I ran forward at a steady pace, making sure to stay away from the people on the other team that were out. I was in the middle of the gym floor when it happened.

I felt something hit me on my left side with enough force to knock me off my feet. I knew someone had tackled me, but at the moment I couldn't see. The aggressor and I rolled over each other. My reflexive instincts of the game kicked in, and I reached my arms downward in an attempt to find one of my opponent's flags. We stopped rolling, and the other person landed on top. I looked up, and beheld the face that fueled yet haunted my deepest thoughts and dreams.

It was Miley.

Immediately, all thoughts of War flew from my mind. I gazed up at the face. She looked just as surprised as I was, but I was too absorbed with her beauty to care. Somehow, at the most random point of time possible, she had ended up laying on top of me, our faces inches away. Not like in my dreams, where this had been entirely intentional, but we had been forced into this fateful position by accident.

I stared at her.

She stared back.

Her face began to get closer. Was that me leaning forward? Was it her?

Or was it both of us?

Whichever one of us was leaning forward, I never found out. I snapped out of it and we both jerked our heads back. Miley scrambled off me, and I stood up, my face on fire. I turned and ran over to my side of the gym, praying to God that she hadn't seen how red my face must have been or felt the rigidness that had recently taken up residence my pants.

I went through the rest of the period in a sort of daze. I ran every time the whistle blew and grabbed at peoples' flags when they came near, but the former cockiness had disappeared. During the rest of the game, half of me was... somewhere else. Occupied. Frankly, I don't remember much of the remaining game. I was still in when Ms. Mac said it was over, so I guess we won.

By the time we went to the locker rooms, I was soaked with sweat, and not just because of all the exercise.

Stupid hormones. Was it just me, or was that thought happening a _lot_ more than usual?

Still in the frame of mind where my body acted automatically without the intervention of my currently busy mind, I changed back into normal clothes and sat down on the bleachers. I remained this way for about a minute before Lilly sat down next to me, followed by Miley.

"Hey, Oliver. Good game today," she said casually.

"Thanks." I couldn't think of anything else to say. A few seconds of silence passed.

"Hey, Oliver, I'm sorry I tackled you earlier," Miley apologized, as if that was the only thing that had happened. "It was an accident."

"It's okay," I said, though part of my heart sank when she said the last part. One of the many thoughts I had entertained myself with was that the whole thing had been on purpose. I had known in the logical part of my brain that this was not true all along, but I still didn't particularly want to hear it.

"Yeah, that was weird," contributed Lilly. "How'd it happen, anyway?"

"I don't know," said Miley, who looked like she was trying to remember something. "I was running and I felt someone push me. I don't know who."

I caught a gleam in Lilly's eye.

"It was probably just an accident," said Lilly. I then detected, though, that her tone sounded almost... amused. As if everything was working perfectly. Which it probably was.

When Miley reached down to pick up her books, I shot Lilly the dirtiest look I could muster. Her response was an expression looked like I had just paid her a very high compliment.

Hmm... the fact that I was upset urged her on...

_Maybe a little reverse psychology._ I made the happiest face I could without making it over the top. She only looked at me all the more brightly.

Abandoning the battle of facial expressions, I grabbed my books and set them on my lap. No sooner had I done so than I heard the bell ring. I marched out of the gym wearily; it had been a very strange PE.

I guess Lilly meant it literally when she said she would give destiny a little push.


	7. Nothing Is Something

**Chapter 7**

**Nothing Is Something**

_Does she like me?_

_No._

_But what if she does?_

_She doesn't._

_What if Lilly's right?_

_Lilly's never right! Remember that test on photosynthesis?_

_You've got a point there._

_Of course I do._

_But what if Miley likes me?_

_As I already said, she doesn't. Must I spell it out for you?_

To my extreme annoyance and turmoil, my insides debated with each other all the way to Focus Reading.

What if she liked me? As much as I hated to admit it, it was beginning to look more and more like Lilly, for once, was right.

There was evidence on both sides. For one, Miley had repeatedly made it crystal clear that she didn't like me. The memories of which that came flooding back to were enough to actually cause me physical pain with the empty feeling which I have already told you about.

But there was also the occurrences of today. She had smiled very widely when I agreed to work with her and stammered when I inquired about her possibly liking someone during Geometry, not to mention that she never looked directly at me the whole time. And, of course, there was PE. What I noticed then was that Miley had pulled away from me at the exact same time I did from her. She didn't do it first, and neither did I. I, of course, was madly in love with her. If she didn't pull back until the moment I did, did that mean she felt the same way just as strongly? Or was she too shocked to react for a second, and I was just making things up?

Hmm... I remembered that I ran away as soon as she got off me and didn't look back. But then I remembered that when I turned back around towards the other team, Miley was already at the other side, which meant that she ran there as quickly as me. Another clue? Or another coincidence?

And then there had been that part after class, where we had talked about it. If you could even call it that. Looking back on it, she almost seemed to be as keen to drop the subject as me. Did that mean anything?

Mr. Corelli's voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Hello, class," he said.

I was shocked to find that I was already in the class, sitting in my seat. I hadn't realized that I was going to my locker and getting my books, I was so absorbed with my thoughts.

"To you girls, Happy Valentine's Day. To you guys, if you haven't broken up with your girlfriends yet, you're suckers."

That earned a laugh from every guy in the class except me.

"Anyways, today we will be watching the movie version of _The Time Machine_," he announced.

Normally, I would have been extremely excited at this news. We had just finished reading _The Time Machine_ a few days ago, and it really was a good book. In particular, I would have wanted to see how the Morlocks would look on film. Today, though, there was just too much on my mind. Still, this was good news. I don't know how I would have been able to do, say, a worksheet in my... current condition. In essence, it was like doing absolutely nothing, which suited me just fine.

"Hey, Mr. Corelli," asked Lilly, "what was it like when Chance punched Dalton so hard that he fainted?"

The rest of the ten-person class seemed interested. Mr. Corelli's face, however, became somewhat stern.

"Chance didn't actually knock Dalton out," said Mr. Corelli in the same tone that he had used when saying that the librarian wasn't less fortunate, she just chose to dress like she did.

"Yes he did," Lilly protested. "He even said so himself."

"It looked like he did at first glance, Ms. Truscott, but that's not the whole, correct story. Chance doesn't even know. What actually happened was that Dalton missed his breakfast this morning. I would know; I caught him sneaking food into class." Mr. Corelli held up an empty energy bar wrapper as evidence.

"As a result," he continued, "Dalton had low blood sugar. He and Chance were playing around with each other, and when Chance hit him lightly on the head, it triggered it and he fainted. It's not Chance's fault, otherwise his folks would have been called immediately and he would no longer be in school."

"Ohhhhhhhhhhh," said Lilly.

Without further interruption, Mr. Corelli inserted the disc into the DVD Player and pressed Play. Then he attempted to sit down in his stool, but it broke. It had been made completely out of metal, and his weight had actually broken it. I admit, this cheered me up a little. Nobody laughed, but that's only because we were holding it in as hard as we could.

As the movie started, my thoughts kept drifting towards Miley, who only complicated the situation because she was sitting right next to me. I tried to make myself concentrate on the movie, but the opening credits weren't exactly captivating.

Then the actual movie part of the movie began. Once again, I tried to focus it rather than the gorgeous brunette who I wasn't sure liked me or not sitting only half a foot away. And once again, my efforts were fruitless; the characters in the movie were just rambling to each other about nothing in their old British-like accents.

Very confused, both by my inner doubts about Miley's feelings towards me and the fact that nothing that had happened so far in the movie was even remotely like anything in the book, I kept watching. The Time Traveler, I supposed the guy on the screen was, met his girlfriend at the park. She remarked that he was late. He asked her to take a walk in the park with him.

When they were far enough down the path through the park, the Time Traveler got down on one knee, slipped a ring with her birth stone on it onto her left hand's ring finger, and asked his girlfriend for her hand in marriage.

"Awwwwwww," said all the girls in the class. Or at least, that's what I initially thought. A moment later, I realized that Miley hadn't said a word. In fact, for a brief instant, she actually looked sad.

Was she thinking about how I would never do something like that because she thought I didn't like her?

Back to the movie, someone walked from the shadows towards the new fiancés. Wishing them well on their journey they were about to take, he told them to consider what he was doing as the first of many bumps on their road, which would only bring them closer in the end anyway. He then took out a gun and told them to give him their wallets. They did. He asked for their watches. They handed them over. He requested the wedding ring. The girl refused.

The man raised the pistol higher. The Time Traveler began to talk some sense into the robber, but suddenly broke off in mid-sentence and grabbed the man's arm, trying to wrench the gun out of his hand.

Now _this _was more like it. Some action, amidst all this pointless dialogue. Not much, just two guys wrestling over a gun, but action was action.

The gun fired.

The Time Traveler's fiancé widened her eyes, clutched her chest, and fell to the ground. The snow where she fell was stained red.

I was harshly brought back to reality as the image of the Time Traveler weeping over his true love's body faded to black.

The movie skipped ahead to four years later. The Time Traveler looked like he was in pretty bad shape. His hair was all shaggy-looking and he really needed a shave. He was in a large library in his home, where about a dozen chalkboards were completely filled with complicated calculations. His friend came, and they talked about nothing again for awhile.

"I'll see you in a week," said his friend, then he left.

The Time Traveler paused. "In a week, we'll have never had this conversation," he declared to nobody.

He walked over to a large curtain covering a corner of the room. He grasped it and dramatically flung it aside, revealing the Time Machine behind it. It seemed to be kind of like it looked in the book, but it had a more finished look and a giant umbrella-like structure sprouting from either end.

He stepped into the Time Machine, pulled some levers, and it started up. Various wheels and gears started turning, while the umbrella things pointed themselves toward the Time Traveler. They glowed, shot out blue beams out to the sides, then curved them over into a bubble that surrounded the Machine. It showed a close-up on one of several small clocks on the dashboard of the Time Machine. For a few seconds, they were motionless. Suddenly, one of them ticked - backwards. Before long, it had started spinning.

It cut to the park again. The Time Traveler arrived, and his girlfriend was there, not a scratch on her, who noticed that he was early. So the Time Traveler must have made sure to get there before the past version of himself, I figured. He pointedly avoided going to the park; instead, he asked her to walk along the street with him. They talked some more in their almost-British-but-not-quite accents, then the Time Traveler told her to wait on the other side of the street while he went to get her some flowers.

While he was buying them, however, in the background through the shop's window, a horse-pulled carriage sped into view. I wasn't sure if they had speed limits back then, but if they did, that carriage was breaking it. There was a high-pitched scream. The Time Traveler's eyes widened in a combination of fear and disbelief.

He turned and ran out of the shop as fast as he could to the carriage. His eyes glistened with tears as he looked down. The camera moved back far enough to make a limp hand visible before the camera faded to black again.

The next day found the Time Traveler mourning his fiancé's death... again. As the same friend from earlier tried to comfort him, he wondered aloud why he couldn't change what happened.

"I could go back one thousand times and watch her die one thousand ways," he said to himself, much to the confusion of his friend.

After the friend left, the Time Traveler decided to travel to the future for some answers. At first, he traveled to 2030. Nothing there to help. Next, he traveled to 2037, only to find that underground demolition for a moon base had destabilized its structure, causing it to break into thousands of pieces which fell to the earth like meteors. He managed to scramble back to his Time Machine, but not before a flying piece of rubble struck him on his head just as he pulled the lever.

He laid there unconscious as he traveled farther and farther forward in time. Finally, he woke up and eased the Machine to a halt at the year 802,701. There he found that humans who called themselves the Eloi lived in cliffside structures kind of like treehouses but attached directly to the cliff made of either bamboo or wood. There was no resemblence to the book except for the year he went to and the name "Eloi." In the book, the Eloi were about four feet tall, very stupid, and weren't strong. Here, they were identical to modern day humans in just about every way. Some could even speak English!

He slept at the house of an Eloi woman named Mara. Of course, this went against the novel. There, the Eloi befriended by the Time Traveler was named Weena. The people who made the movie couldn't even respect one of the most important characters' name?

The next morning, he went with Mara to check on the Time Machine. It was alright, but an alarm sounded from the Eloi village. They ran back the way they came. They were in the forest right next to it when they saw several large figures running after them, which were unclear because of the trees and the low amount of available light because of them.

They made it to the village, but something jumped onto the ground behind them as they did. They turned around.

The Morlock was, once again, absolutely nothing like the book. It was human-sized, like the Eloi, muscular, covered in light-brown fur, stood crouched down like an ape, and had a large, squashed nose and a pair of jaws that protruded from the face.

It showed a close-up of its face as it roared to the sky, baring yellowish fangs. To me, it looked cool. To Miley, it must have looked scary, because she reflexively reached over and grabbed my arm.

I instantly forgot about the movie as her warm hand touched me. I looked over in surprise. Miley looked back at me. For what seemed like forever, I stared into her eyes. Even in the dim light, they were so incredibly blue.

Then, slowly, she relinquished her hold on my arm and turned back to the TV screen. I mimicked her, and fought very hard not to look over at her as the pleasant tingling sensation where she had touched me gradually disappeared.

The rest of the movie seemed to sort of slip by. The Morlocks kidnapped Mara. The Time Traveler snuck into their underground home to get her back. They found him and took him to their leader, who looked strikingly like Lucius Malfoy from _Harry Potter_ except that his hair and skin were both pure white. The Uber-Morlock explained to the Time Traveler why he couldn't change what happened to his fiancé; the only reason he built the Time Machine because she died, so she had to die no matter what in order for it to exist. He was caught in a paradox. The Uber-Morlock gave him his Time Machine back and told him to go now that he had his answer. The Time Traveler, however, started a fight with the Uber-Morlock on the Time Machine itself and killed him by pushing him off while it was still traveling in time, causing him to age rapidly and die. Then the Time Traveler went back, freed Mara, made his own Time Machine malfunction, and escaped before the Machine exploded in a brilliant flash of light that turned all the remaining Morlocks into skeletons. Happy ending.

When the movie ended and the lights turned back on, I looked at the clock and saw that we only had perhaps a minute left of class. Several students requested Sweet Hearts.

"No, no, not yet," said Mr. Corelli. The kids groaned. "I'll give them out when you come back for Sixth Period."

He looked at the clock. "Let's do lunch," he said as he always did when it was time for lunch. Students grabbed their things and proceeded into the hallway disorganizedly. I followed, wondering if it was physically possible for your brain to melt from being so confused.


	8. Love And Food Don't Mix Well

Yeah, I wasn't very satisfied with last chapter, which is actually the first time I haven't been for any of my stories. It was mostly a filler, true, but it'll serve its part eventually. Besides, this story is based on my own Valentine's Day, so I couldn't really leave it out; it'd be breaking the rules or something. I'm very grateful that it received so many reviews, since I don't think it deserved them. There won't be any more chapters like that, unless you count this one. Which you shouldn't, I think, because something pretty important enters Oliver's head during this chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Love and Food Don't Mix Well**

As I walked forward in the lunch line, my eyes landed on a small heap of small, white paper bags. This put my salivary glands into overdrive as if it was a genetically programmed code of human behavior, as natural as blinking. For a moment, as impossible as it sounds, I even completely forgot about Miley.

I knew what was in those bags. The picture of them had been etched into my memory; the bag was folded over at the top to conserve heat, and adorning its front was a cartoon of a kid holding what the bag contained against a red section of background. The paper was shiny from the thin layer of grease covering it that had seeped through from inside. In large bold letters read two words: **Bosco Sticks**.

Someone's arm reached in front of the delicious snack items. I craned my neck, trying not to let the Boscos out of sight. It wasn't until then that I noticed that it was none other than Miley I was trying to look past. My shoulders slumped, I sighed, and that oh-so-familiar emptiness materialized within my chest again. Oh, well. It wasn't like it was any different than usual.

I grabbed a tray and kept walking, my eyes now unwillingly focusing on both Miley and the Bosco Sticks. This wasn't fair. Why I wanted to look at Miley was self-explanatory. However, I also had to look at the Bosco Sticks because they sold so fast that they'd all be gone within three minutes, and there were easily ten bags sitting there. If I accidentally missed them, not only would I be deprived of lunch, I would be deprived of a _great_ lunch! But it was so hard to not look at Miley. Was any man this strong?

I awoke from my thoughts to find myself about a yard away from the Bosco Sticks. There were still a few bags left, but I wasn't taking any chances. I had witnessed people who cut in line just walk up to them and take the rest before anybody else could get them. I stretched forward, as far as I could, until it felt like I was about to dislocate my own arm from the effort, and triumphantly seized a bag and set it on my tray. Resisting the urge to jump up and yell, "YES!", I picked up a milk and a bag of Doritos. Oddly, they didn't have anything special for Valentine's Day. That was a shame. I happened to like those little frosting-covered cookies, despite the fact that they were pink and shaped like hearts. Well, at least they had Boscos, so I wasn't complaining.

_Now..._

I spotted Miley again ahead of me. I went into stare mode again. Everything went to slow motion. The casual way she tucked back her hair over her shoulder, the occasional step forward as the line kept moving. My eyes drifted downward. Hmm... those little steps looked _very_ good from this angle...

"Having fun?"

My heart leapt to my throat, accompanied by a short yell of surprise. I barely managed to keep my food from flying off the tray. Just like when I had hit my head against my locker, my actions earned me a few curious stares, which I again ignored. I turned around very slowly and gave Lilly a look that would burn through a solid wall. Her grin widened proportionally.

"Must you?" I growled after a few seconds.

"I must," she replied airily.

I gave her nothing more than the sound of my teeth grinding together for the rest of the time we were in line. After purchasing my food, I sat down by Miley, Lilly joining us five seconds later. I pretended like nothing was bothering me.

And for about twenty seconds, it was actually true. All distracting thoughts were banished from my head as I remembered the little white paper bag sitting in front of me. I frantically unfolded the top of the bag and looked inside. A wave of warm air showered my face while the scent of bread and melted cheese snaked into my nostrils. I picked up one of the Bosco Sticks tenderly between my pointer finger and thumb, savoring the heat that it transferred to my fingertips. I pointed it to my face like a suicidal man would point a gun at himself. My tongue slithered out of my mouth like a cobra and wrapped itself around the tip of the cheese-filled breadstick. I could taste the little particles of cheese and garlic resting on its surface. At last, I couldn't take it any longer; I stuffed the entire thing into my mouth at once. My tongue was assaulted by the overwhelming taste of bread, cheese, garlic, and buttery liquid fat. _Delicious_.

It was not until I swallowed that I noticed that Miley and Lilly were both looking at me as if I had just done something incredibly weird. I sifted through my memories carefully... nope, I couldn't think of any abnormalities. I kept my face blank. Their looks didn't recede.

This battle of wills went on for several minutes. Finally, Miley decided to give in.

"What's wrong with you, boy?" Her normally subtle Tennessean accent thickened.

"That _is_ what's wrong with him," explained Lilly. "He's a boy."

I sucked the grease off of my fingers indignantly.

The next few minutes were spent in awkward silence as my thoughts of glorious lunch were replaced with that infernal hollowness.

"So," I found myself saying, "what'd you guys think of the movie?" It was only after I had completed my sentence that I remembered what had occurred during the movie, which was not a subject at the top of my criteria.

Not surprisingly, it was Lilly who spoke first.

"I liked it better than the book," she announced unexpectedly.

"What?" Miley and I both shouted incredulously in unison.

Lilly took us literally. "I liked it better than the book," she repeated more slowly, as if we didn't hear her clearly the first time.

"We heard what you said," said Miley.

"Then why'd you ask?" inquired Lilly, genuinely puzzled.

"Because the book was way better!" I exclaimed. Miley nodded vigorously, much to my pleasure.

"How can a book possibly be better than a movie?" asked Lilly.

"... by being better," Miley stated as though talking to a five-year-old.

"But books can't be better than movies!"

"Why not?" I demanded.

"Because you have to _read_ books!" She said the word 'read' like she couldn't wait to get it off her tongue.

Miley and I provided four rolling eyes for her to complain to.

Miley decided to change the subject.

"So, Lilly, how is your matchmaking going?"

Lilly squeaked loudly; she had just spilled her milk all over her shirt.

On purpose.

"Oh, just _great_!" she said loudly. "I've gotta go dry myself off."

She arose from her seat and walked in the direction of the napkins. When her back was turned to Miley, though, she made sure to flash me a devilish grin.

I once again reconfigured the magnitude of the situation. I was a guy. Guys like food. Clothes are to girls like food is to guys. Because I was a guy, I knew next to nothing about clothes, but even I could tell that the shirt Lilly was wearing was exceptional. Valentine's Day didn't come every day; everybody was dressed a little better than usual, the girls most of all. So if Lilly was determined enough in her quest to make that kind of sacrifice, I knew that it would take nothing less than a fully armored tank to so much slow her down.

And there was also Lilly's surprisingly masterful tactitioning to fight against. In a quarter of a second, she had come up with a way both to evade Miley's question and to get Miley and I alone together again.

And speaking of which...

"Well, it looks like it's just you and me," she shrugged as I nibbled on the corner of a Dorito. I only wished it was true.

Again, my thoughts wandered off on their own. Lilly was proving to be a formidable opponent with many different weapons: determination, intelligence, and others. I reminded myself of an in-game quote from _Halo 2_:

_"The only thing worse than Jackals: Jackals with sniper rifles."_

Then a revelation hit me.

Did Lilly have to be my enemy, a Jackal with a 10x-scoped Covenant Particle Beam Rifle aimed at my head?

Could I tell Miley that I loved her?

"OLIVER!"

I jumped.

"What?! What?!" I looked around quickly. With my mind back in my body again, I could see that it had been Miley who screamed at me.

"Only that I've been saying your name over and over for about the last ten seconds and the whole time you just stared blankly off into space." She drooped her eyelids slightly and hung her mouth open about half an inch to indicate what I had been doing.

Oh, _great_. Nevermind the fact that I had probably been staring straight at her with that expression.

"Sorry," was all I said. I was too troubled to say anything more creative. "Why were you saying my name?"

"Because you were staring blankly off into space," she repeated, making the zoned-out face again.

"Oh." I still couldn't make an interesting conversation. I munched on the end of my remaining Bosco Stick to keep my thoughts clear. That had been a pretty major thought, after all. I needed some time to digest it. And it would also keep my wandering eyes out of the territory of her... chest. Yeah, that's the word for it. Her captivating, smoothly curved... _chest_. And, my luck, I couldn't get the picture out of my mind as I thought about not looking at it, which I wasn't. By thinking about not staring at her _chest_, I had made it so that I couldn't stop thinking about them. Er, it.

_Why does the world have such a sick sense of humor?_ I pondered miserably.

I awakened from my inner turmoil to discover that I had already finished the Bosco Stick. I only barely restrained myself from screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" Now it was gone, and I had been too preoccupied with pervish little thoughts of Miley's br - CHEST to enjoy it while it was still there. I noticed that a ghost of the taste still rested on my tongue, so I sat there trying to make the most out of it before it slipped away.

I forced myself to concentrate on the receding taste of the Bosco Stick before I let myself think again. It was so weird. Before, my thoughts had been consumed with whether Miley actually did like me or not. Now, I was actually going a step forward. Could I actually tell Miley how I felt? It was such an obvious thing to do, yet I hadn't even considered it the entire day, even when I began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, she felt the same way.

If I did do it... well, I've already told you what would happen if she didn't return my feelings. But now that I had been informed that there was, in fact, a possibility that things could turn out differently, I felt... hope. For the first time, I actually felt that this might just work out.

_And if she doesn't?_ the doubtful part of myself inquired acidly. The hole in my chest opened wider just at the thought.

The doubtfulness, of course, had a point. I was getting way ahead of myself here. There was still the much larger chance that Miley felt nothing, in which case everything would be completely ruined. I wouldn't be able to take the rejection. I would die.

I mentally growled in frustration. Why couldn't life ever be simple?

As you can imagine, my mood didn't brighten at all by the reappearance of Lilly at the table. Well, until I noticed that she hadn't been able to get all traces of the milk off her shirt. That cheered me up a little.

"Sorry about that, guys," she apologized. "You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get all that out. But, as they say, there's no crying over spilled milk." She said the last part in her trademark annoying singsong voice. "Besides, I think I got it all out."

I chuckled inwardly.

The moment passed, however, as my thoughts went back to their recent default state of trying to work everything out, my mood getting more somber by the minute. I finished my Doritos quietly as Miley and Lilly babbled about some kind of girl thing or another.

Fortunately or not, I wasn't really sure at that point, we were dismissed about a minute later. I threw my trash away and headed toward my locker, my thoughts still battling each other mercilessly.

_I repeat, why can't life ever be simple?_


	9. Don't Close Your Eyes

**Chapter 9**

**Don't Close Your Eyes**

"Happy Valentine's Day, class."

"Happy Valentine's Day," we wearily chorused in return.

Ms. Duke wore her usual warm smile. "Please take out last night's homework and we'll go over it."

Ms. Duke was a very... _unique_ teacher. She wasn't mean or anything. On the contrary, she was quite possibly my nicest. However, if you had to take a guess on which grade she taught judging solely by the tone of her voice, you would guess that she was a preschool teacher. She always talked in a very cheerful voice; perhaps a little too cheerful for the class not to get the impression that Ms. Duke thought we were just little kids. I didn't really mind, but that didn't put that bouncy tone to rest. In physical terms, she was average in height and weight, with glasses and short, curly, grey hair. She almost never stopped smiling.

I fetched last night's homework out of my orange Science folder. In my opinion, it had been too much for one night, especially the night before a holiday. The homework was composed of four worksheets (front and back) stapled together to form a packet. So, altogether, that was eight sheets in one night.

Once everyone had their work out, Ms. Duke started calling on people to read what answers they got. I honestly tried to focus on what was going on, but the effort was wasted. The two sides of my mind were arguing like they were married. How could anyone possibly think of science when their love life was in jeopardy?

Maybe Lilly was right. Maybe this _was_ a matter of destiny. Consider into the equation all of the relationships that both Miley and I had been in. The longest (me and Becca, in case you were wondering) had lasted what, two weeks? And Jake flies off two thousand miles away right after he first kisses Miley. I had earlier dismissed that as coincidence, but now that I thought about it...

"...divided by time equals power, then how many Watts did it take to..."

But why would Miley like me? What could she possibly see in me? I for sure couldn't tell, granted that she saw something in the first place. She was so... perfect, and I wasn't. I simply didn't measure up to someone like her.

"Seven Joules? Are you sure? Good, because it's correct."

Wait a second. Why _wouldn't_ Miley like me? I was good looking. I've been to the beach with her plenty of times, so she's seen my rock-hard abs. The ones I built up just for her. Not to mention my fabulous hair. Wasn't I the one who always called myself Smokin' Oken? Smokin' Oken... Smokin' Oken...

"Smokin' Oken?"

I jolted upwards and the classroom instantly came back into view. Not exactly to my surprise, I discovered that my eyes were pointed at the back of Miley's head, her beautiful brown curls shining in the light from the ceiling.

Noticing that I was zoning out within half a second of being woken up, I wrenched my gaze from Miley to Ms. Duke.

Ms. Duke was the one who had said my name, I was positive of that much. She liked using nicknames, sometimes even coming up with one for a student based on a one-time incident. For example, one time she had asked a kid named David a question, to which he automatically replied, "Defrost." He'd been reading the information on a pack of gum and just mistakenly blurted it out. From that day forward, she called him Defroster, and the name, strangely, stuck. As a result, she was the only one besides myself who referred to me as Smokin' Oken.

But that didn't give me any idea what question she had just asked for.

"What number are we on?" I hesitantly overcame my pride.

Ms. Duke, thankfully, didn't rub it in. "The last one on the page," she provided generously.

I looked at the bottom of the page and read the question aloud.

"_You and a friend are hired to move a large pile of wood to another location. You agree that one of you will move the wood halfway while the other person eats lunch, then the other one will do it the rest of the way while the first person eats their lunch. You move the wood halfway then go out to lunch. When you get back, you discover that your friend has accidentally moved the wood back to its original position. Your employer refuses to pay you because he says that no work was done. Is he justified in his actions?"_

That was an easy one. Work, scientifically, is when force is applied to an object to make it move a distance. If you push against a wall and it doesn't budge, then you technically haven't done any work. If you pick up a pencil, though, than you have done work.

"No."

Ms. Duke continued to stare at me for a second, then said, "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I replied.

Ms. Duke turned her head to a hand that was in the air. "What do you think, Dandruff Danny?"

He winced slightly at the sound of his nickname, but answered, "No."

"And why not?" she asked curiously.

"Because the wood didn't move."

_Yes it did!_ my mind screamed. Sure, it ended up at the same place where it started, but it still moved.

"Correct."

_No it's not! It's wrong!_

"Number eight. Rocky?"

My head sunk down to my desk in defeat. I knew it would be pointless to argue. When a teacher said something, it was true. That's just the way it was, no debating. There the answer is, set in stone. That's all there is to it. Teachers can't be wrong, they get paid not to. The list goes on and on. Even with Ms. Duke, that was how things were.

I felt my consciousness slipping away again. I watched it go as if it was a ship setting sail, though I was made sure not to start staring at Miley without meaning to.

_We've gotta tell her._

_We? What do you mean, "we?" We're the same person._

_Okayyyy. _I've _gotta tell her._

_Oh no I don't._

_Yes I do. What's the point of living if you're half dead inside?_

_It's better than being completely dead inside._

_But I might not die inside. Suppose she likes me._

_Suppose she doesn't. Am I willing to take that risk?_

_...I don't know._

_Neither do I. Which makes sense, 'cause we're the same person._

_This is so hard. I don't even know what to think anymore. Why me?_

_Because I'm a sucker for Miley._

_Yeah, but why am I a sucker for Miley? It all causes me nothing but pain._

_That's love for ya._

I smiled.

_But I still haven't answered the question. Should I do it?_

_I honestly have no clue. On one hand, my existence might become worthwhile, which, admittedly, it currently isn't. On the other hand, my life might become unbearable._

_Should I go for it and hope for the best?_

_Hope doesn't mean anything._

_Miley is perfect. She's smart, funny, and her body's not bad either._

_I'm smart._

_I'm funny._

_I spent four freaking months getting my abs this toned._

_So what does Miley have that I don't?_

_Nothing._

_Okay, so there's not really any reason for her _not _to like me._

_But then again, there's not really any reason for math once we've learned how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, either. The question isn't "should she." It's "does she."_

_So does she?_

_There's only one way to find out._

I was right, I knew that much, but I was... scared. Which was not a common emotion for me.

_Even if I decide to tell her, will I be able to go through with it? I don't know if I have enough courage to do something that major._

_Besides, I couldn't just pull her out to the side in the middle of the hallways and do it in between classes. It would take too long. Where could I possibly do it?_

Because of fate or sheer coincidence, I don't know, but even though I hadn't paid attention to anything that had been said in class, I heard Ms. Duke say something at that exact moment:

"Okay, class. Because it's Valentine's Day, I'm not gonna give you any extra work. We'll spend the rest of the period outside."

_... that could work_, I thought as the rest of the class cheered.

_But that doesn't mean I've made up my mind._

I rose from my desk and walked to the door.

"Take a Sweet Heart as you leave," said Ms. Duke.

I was right next to the open bag when she said that, so I automatically took one. I strode out to about the middle of the space outside before looking down at it.

**Ask me**.

I was gripped by some alien emotion I had never felt before. It felt somewhat like fear, but mixed with panic and... denial?

Whatever it was, my eyes snapped shut like those of a child who had just seen a scaly green hand reach out of their closet.

Then, I heard Miley herself sing two lines from one of my favorite songs as clearly as if she was singing it with her microphone and blonde wig right next to me.

_Don't close your eyes_

_'Cause it's a chance worth taking._

I obeyed. As my eyes slowly opened, a fuzzy picture directly ahead of me became more and more visible.

Of course, my head was conveniently pointed right at (who else?) Miley.

I dropped the Sweet Heart into a sewer vent and started to walk toward her.


	10. A Chance Taken

**Chapter 10**

**A Chance Taken**

My legs turned to lead as I approached Miley, like the descriptions people give when they're running from something in one of their nightmares. I had experienced this myself a few times, and it was nothing compared to the real life feeling. It was no dream that I was in. It was all too real. And it could easily become far worse than any nightmare.

I came closer to her very slowly, but not nearly slowly enough. I already felt sweat accumulating under my shirt like dew collecting on grass.

My heart pounded so hard that I could hear it beating like a drum. In my stomach, butterflies flew around angrily. My breath came in short, shallow gasps, as if I had just repeated the mile run back in fifth grade all over again.

The hollowness in my chest expanded and contracted rhythmically as various _what if_s played through my head. To be honest, I would have preferred it to stay open, if anything. It was like somebody holding a chocolate chip cookie in front of your nose. And I'm not talking about any chocolate chip cookie; this was a chocolate chip cookie that your mom had just pulled fresh from the oven, the chocolate chips melted into it, moist, warm, and mushy so that you can pull it apart with as little effort as raising your finger, steam and that hypnotic scent rising from it in tiny little clouds. Then the hand pulls back the cookie just as you are about to snap at it. You feel the sense of heavy loss, but wait - the hand just brought it back right in front of your nose! This time, you _do_ lunge at it, only for your teeth to hit cold air; the cookie has already been yanked back again. It's maddening. You'd rather it just stayed still, even if it was out of reach, instead of tormenting you by giving you some kind of possibility, only for it to be suddenly gone.

_Look at me_, I thought with something in between guiltiness and embarrassment. _Here I am, about to confess my hidden, raging affections to the only girl I will ever love, and I'm thinking about freshly baked cookies._

Little things that I would normally not pay attention to became obvious to me. The way the bees squirmed around on the flower petals, or how the leaves rustled so gently in the breeze, or the clouds all moving at an inch an hour in the same direction.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. To simply inhale exhausted me, to exhale brought an unholy ache. My lungs had turned into sandpaper, difficult to stretch and chafing my insides.

And then self-consciousness came. Was my hair messed up? How did I smell? What could I do with my arms other than just letting them hang at my sides like I was some kind of ape?

Miley was close now, only six feet away. With every step towards her that I took, the many physical responses for what I was about to do intensified.

She noticed me coming and turned to me. The nervous symptoms doubled. My heart was no longer beating like any old drum now, it was an ancient war drum. There were no more butterflies in my stomach; they had just turned into crows.

Her eyes seemed to pierce right through me, though they still looked like the calm pools that they always did. Lilly, who had been talking with her, saw me too and paused. In _her_ blue eyes, I saw a surprising amount of eagerness and hope. I guess she had noticed something off about me. Which was an understatement, because I felt like I was about to spontaneously die in seven different ways. Maybe eight.

I reached three feet and stopped.

Miley smiled brightly. The crows flapped their wings a little bit harder.

"Hey, Oliver. What's up?"

Definitely eight.

My throat felt like someone had sealed it with rubber cement. If I tried to talk, I knew that the sound would get stuck in my throat before it finally blew it up.

"Can I talk to you for a second?"

_Whoa, I actually said it._

My confidence rejuvenated for the moment, I added, "Alone," with a sideways glance to Lilly.

"Sure," agreed Miley, a slightly confused expression crossing her beautiful face. The nervous feelings swiftly returned.

Then I realized that my feet had grown roots that had firmly fastened themselves to the ground. That was obviously what had happened, because my legs wouldn't move. I strained, no matter how much I didn't want to, until the roots snapped.

Ignoring the impossibly large grin that split Lilly's face when Miley turned her back to her, I took Miley's arm lightly. I wanted the roots to come back and take hold of the ground again, because my legs began to turn into jelly. It took most of my strength, but I managed to walk around the corner of the school building so that nobody would see us.

Once we were out of sight, Miley turned to me. "So, Oliver, what did you want to say?"

A sudden wave of suspicion rolled across my mind. I put a finger over my mouth to Miley, then slowly walked over to the corner, making sure not to make even the slightest sound.

When I was a foot away, I sprang out from the side of the building. I was greeted with a yelp as Lilly jumped backwards.

"Leave," I commanded. If I was going to tell Miley, then I was going to do it without any imperfections. Lilly eavesdropping on us would definitely qualify as an imperfection.

Lilly clearly hadn't stopped smiling since I asked to talk to Miley, and she didn't stop when I told her to go away. She turned around to go, stopped, and turned back to me again. To my surprise, she put her hand on my shoulder.

"Good luck," she said completely seriously, though the smile didn't fade from her face at all, and I felt my anger disappear. Lilly turned around again and, to the ruin of her sincere effect, hopped excitedly away.

I retreated around the corner again.

"Good luck?" said Miley, her brow furrowed with incomprehension. "Good luck with what?"

The crows turned into eagles.

How was I going to tell her? I had to get it across somehow, but I couldn't just come right out and say it. Words tumbled around in my head, none of which helped at all.

"Good luck with what I'm about to do," I told her to gain time.

I just had to say it. That was all there was to it. Easy.

"What are you about to do?"

Unfortunately, I had a stomach full of angry birds of prey that were telling me otherwise.

"I need to tell you something," I finally choked out.

The eagles responded by tying my stomach in a tight knot. Now it not only hurt from the knot, but by the fact that the twenty eagles were still inside of it.

"What do you need to tell me?"

This was it. If I finally confessed to her now, I would never be able to go back. Not even with a Time Machine, because after right now, she would always know. If I went back with a Time Machine to change it, she would still find out one way or another. Once I told her, it would be absolutely irreversible. There could be no turning back.

And the fact that the eagles were playing football and that my heart was trying to tear out of my chest like an Alien wasn't making it any easier.

"Miley, I love you."

_Wait, did I say that?_ It must have been me, because the eagles abruptly froze and Miley looked at me with an expression of pure shock.

I didn't know how long the silence lasted. Whether it was several seconds or several hours, it was the most uncertain, uncomfortable moment in my entire life. I was given no clues whatsoever to what would happen next, and what happened next would, for better or worse, change my life. It felt like I was standing on one foot over the edge of a cliff, trying to regain my balance.

Miley decided to break the silence.

"What did you say?" Her tone and face were unfathomable. It was a simple question.

I gulped and took a deep breath.

"I love you, Miley. There's no other way to put it. It's not a crush, and it's not about how you look. It's love."

Miley looked speechless. Her mouth opened a few times as if to talk, then shut. When she wasn't trying to say something, her lip trembled. All the while, I was still balanced precariously on the edge of the cliff.

I decided to talk some more, because Miley clearly wasn't going to anytime soon.

"I know that it's love. A silly little crush could never cause me so much pain. I'm constantly carrying around a sickly hollowness inside of me that is only filled even partially whenever I'm around you. Whenever you smile, it shrinks. Whenever you laugh, it shrinks again. Whenever you hug me, it shrinks even more. But whenever you call me your friend, it grows, because I don't want to just be your friend. I want to be more to you than that, and I want you to be more to me than that. I love you more than anyone or anything in the entire world. ...I wanted you to know that."

Cheesy? Yes.

An exaggeration? No.

Over the top? Probably, but anything less would have been a lie.

To my surprise, I felt... better. Not good, as the eagles had recovered from their stupor, but better; the eagles were now playing basketball. It was like holding your breath for one straight minute, then letting it out. It was a sense of relief.

But if Miley didn't love me back, then I would know what it would feel like to suffocate.

If possible, Miley looked even more shocked than before. Her mouth wasn't even closing at all at that point. Even when it wasn't trying to form words, it still stayed ajar. Little, almost inaudible squeaky noises were coming out of her throat. She was getting much closer to talking. Personally, I didn't think I could say another word without my tongue dislodging itself from my mouth and wriggling away like an earthworm.

At last, Miley spoke.

"Oliver... I... I'm so sorry..."

All relief left me.

I lost my balance and fell off the cliff.

I couldn't breathe.

And above of all, the hole opened wider than I ever thought possible.

This was what it felt like. I had imagined this scene a thousand times, in a thousand different ways. Some ended happily. Others made me clench my fists so hard that my hands got cramps. But my hands and my mood always recovered. The emptiness always faded. It sometimes took a few hours, but it did.

I knew immediately, though, that I would never get over this. The rest of my life would be only an empty void, constantly nagging me about what could have been, but didn't, because that was how real life worked. That I wasn't good enough for her, that I never was, and I knew it, but my own selfish impulse made in desire for something more meaningful had ruined everything. Miley and I would lose contact, no matter how much I didn't want that to happen. Then, alone and without any further use to the world, I would die alone.

And nobody, especially not Miley, would even give a second thought.

"I'm sorry I've been hurting you this whole time. If I'd just known that you felt the same way, I would have said something."

_Huh?_

"Huh?" said the Alien that had taken the place of my heart.

"Huh?" said the eagles.

"Huh?" said the hollowness, using the hole as a mouth.

_Wait, did I just say that out loud?_ I must have, because Miley gave me a startled look.

She soon regained her composure. "Oliver, nobody could have captured the way I feel about you better than how you just told me. I... I love you too."

At that point, it wouldn't have surprised me in the least if a pterodactyl flew out of the sky and dropped a TV in front of us that automatically turned to the news to show Pikachu sitting at a desk and reporting in Arnold Schwarzenegger's voice that a special squad of Smurf commandoes had just assassinated President Bush with a toothpick.

"You do?" It was all I could think of. Those Smurfs had just injected an anesthetic into my brain.

She gave a weak smile. Her face began to get closer.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been forcefully reminded of the earlier incident at PE. But then again, these were hardly normal circumstances. As such, I couldn't remember PE. I couldn't think at all.

It was only then that I realized that _I _was leaning forward, straight towards her.

And so was she.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. Miley's hair waved about in the breeze as slowly as a truck moving through a wall of thick mud.

The Alien was getting angry now. From the inside, it thrust itself forward again and again in substitution of what was supposed to be a normal heartbeat. It was a wonder that my ribs hadn't already been forced outward.

Miley was close, only inches away. As I stared, her beautiful blue eyes, oh so gradually, closed. I followed her example like a preprogrammed machine, without thought or reason. My last image of her was fuzzy and distorted as my eyelashes covered my field of vision before everything went black. I felt my lips part very slightly of their own accord, in preparation of what I knew would happen next.

Our lips met.

A spark ignited when they touched, as though one of us had been dragging our feet across a carpeted floor while wearing socks. But the electric shock didn't immediately leave. It stayed, flowing freely through our pairs of lips in a perpetual circuit, energizing me like I had never known.

Everything else vanished. Whether it was the school building, Lilly's crossed fingers on the other side of it, or time itself, the only things existing were Miley and I.

And the emptiness trembled, shriveled up, and died, leaving behind only a blissfully warm feeling of relief that never really left me.

I presently became aware that our hands had both traveled to each other's sides. I reached up with one hand and began to run it through Miley brown hair. It was so smooth. My hand slipped through it as easily as if it were thin air.

Our bodies were pressed against each other. Not tightly or urgently, but just enough to make shivers run down my spine.

Her mouth tasted like nothing I had ever encountered before. Neither the greasiest piece of pizza nor the lips of any of the other girls I had kissed had ever tasted so good. Okay, so I had never kissed anybody else besides Becca anyway, but she was a bite of celery compared to this buffet.

A feeling of extreme discomfort was beginning to grow at the base of my throat. I tried to ignore it, but it kept on building up until it reached the point of becoming unendurable. I was beginning to panic and was about to interrupt the kiss to do something when I realized that I had forgotten to breathe. I inhaled sharply and let my lungs fill up.

So you can imagine my surprise when I felt the tip of Miley's tongue lightly tap my lower lip. It wasn't until I thoroughly replayed this scene through my mind later that I figured out that Miley must have thought that me breathing in like that was an expression of pleasure.

At that point in time, however, all thought coming in and going out of my mind had been halted, and before I knew it, I had opened my mouth.

And after I did that... well, let's just say that the front of my pants became very tight and her mouth suddenly tasted twice as good.

If I had imagined telling Miley how I felt a thousand times, then I had imagined kissing her several million times. Sometimes I had purposely constructed whole elaborate scenes while I was lying in bed, waiting for sleep to overtake me. More often, the picture of us kissing popped into my head for no reason at all, then abruptly ended. Then, of course, there were all the dreams.

I liked those little products of my imagination. They... _entertained_ me. Quite a lot, as you can imagine. They certainly helped pass the time, at the very least.

But this...

This surpassed all of my other fantasies combined. No question, no contest. Not even my darkest, most R-rated dreams so much as compared to this. And, I admit, there had been more than a few of those.

And so, after an eternity that didn't last long enough, we both slowly withdrew our faces, sucking each others lips lightly before they pulled apart.

Miley gave me the warmest smile I had ever seen.

"I do."

And from the deepest depths of my heart came the warmest smile I ever gave. And to think that prior to now, I had known for certain that I would never smile again.

To my alarm, Miley's smile suddenly vanished, replaced by a look of concern.

"You're crying," she stated matter-of-factly.

I cocked my head in confusion, touching the corner of my eye before I looked down at my fingertip unemotionally. A tiny dome of clear liquid sat on it contently. A tear.

So I _had_ been crying. How about that.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

I smiled again as I wiped the tears from my face and shook my head.

"How could anything possibly be wrong?"

Miley smiled back.

Her face was still very flushed from that kiss. Then again, I could have probably made Superman's cape pretty jealous at that moment.

We both just stood there, smiling at each other, for what seemed like an hour of a perfect moment. We didn't say a word; words were unnecessary.

When Ms. Duke's whistle suddenly pierced the air, I almost jumped out of my skin. It was time to go in. I checked my watch. True enough, there was only one minute until we were dismissed to 6th Period. How had time kept going on? It had disappeared during the kiss. It must have.

I mentally shrugged. If time wanted to keep going, then I wasn't going to get upset about it.

Miley and I finally came back from behind the corner of the school building. It seemed like so long ago since I had gone behind it. So much had happened in what turned out to be such a short amount of time. Anything, no matter the size, can happen at any moment.

My legs carried me towards the door back into the school. I was in a daze, not unlike the one I had been in after PE.

I saw Lilly as if she was on a mildly interesting TV show that I was only diverting a small fraction of my attention to. She must have, once again, seen something different about me even though I was still about twenty feet away, because she was doing twice as many backflips and somersaults as she had when she had been at cheerleader tryouts, all while producing a long series of very loud and jubilant noises interrupted only with an occasional, "YES!"

Ms. Duke looked slightly frightened.

At the sight of Lilly, hyperactive or not, some actual thoughts, miraculously, entered my brain. I owed her. Bigtime. I owed her my _life_. I had no idea what I could possibly do to repay her, but I knew that I would come up with something. And when I did, I wouldn't rest until it had been accomplished.

Everything looked like a dream as I entered the school. The classroom was mostly empty and there were many moving figures outside. The bell must have already rung.

I felt no physical strain as I picked up my books and went into the hallway, Miley close behind. We turned to each other, and the whole hall seemed to light up like a Christmas tree when she smiled. I smiled back. Wordlessly, we turned away from each other and to our lockers.

There was no thought involved in making my way through the crowd of noisy students to my locker. None of them mattered. Not now. They were just objects. Nothing existed to me except the incredible feeling of fulfillment.

Complete fulfillment.

My hands switched my Science book for my backpack and a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and shut my locker.

I sat down when I entered Mr. Corelli's class and just waited, head placed on the desk, for the bell to ring. Not an ounce of boredom entered my mind as I was completely still for four minutes, doing absolutely nothing.

The bell rang, and the classroom door shut.

"To those of you who aren't in my Focus Reading class, happy Valentine's Day." Mr. Corelli's voice seemed so far away.

I looked up. He was walking around the room and placing a Sweet Heart on each desk as he passed it.

Miley stole a glance at me. We both smiled again. It was like looking in a mirror.

There was a small _tap_ as a purple Sweet Heart touched the surface of my desk. I looked down at it.

**XOXO**.

For what seemed like the millionth time in the last ten minutes, a smile spread across my face.

_Well, one can only hope._

Like so many other things I had done that day, I didn't think as I popped the Sweet Heart into my mouth.

And it tasted great.

* * *

It's over! A month and a half after I started, it's finally over!

I've had so much fun writing this story. The hours and hours of my time sacrificed just to make this story are all entirely worth it. I would like to give a special thanks to everybody who ever reviewed this story for keeping me going on: **SingingHeartOut 7**, **apparox148**, **iheartdisney128**, **mmvok**, **MileyXOXOliver**, **Person who loves ur writing**, **elveswithattitude**, **Boeremeisie**, **Sidhe-Anomaly**, **DlnSprFan101**, **Beautiful Mess x3**, **icechains55**, **Kerbie Roman**, **weeziebomb**, ** .forever**, **Perfectionista**, **Chaotic-obsession4eva**, **QueenOfBlah**,** casey**, , **argentinipinki**,** risingstar9328**, ** .ObsessionXx**, **MangoFlavored x3**,and **moliverlover**, in that order.

Also, I have good news for those of you who have enjoyed this story: I'm planning a sequel, as I hinted slightly at above with Oliver saying that he'd find a way how to repay Lilly. So he and Miley will try to hook up Lilly and Jackson. Sound interesting? If you do, then let me know, because I will only write the sequel if I get ten requests. Also, if you have any ideas for the title, then tell me that also, because I have no clue as of yet.

So please review (it's your last chance to tell me what you thought, after all), and goodbye for now!


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